Rage post about the gender pay gap: warning contains ALL CAPS

So there's new local research out today that the gender pay gap is a) real and b) primarily due to conscious and unconscious bias.

Firstly YES.

And also: it is good to have this in the public arena and being discussed, and for the Minister for Women to accept the findings as opposed to going "but we really need more research to be sure".   It is a victory for all those good folks who have been fighting to get this issue looked at on the facts, for many years now.

Because it is undeniable, it really is, that there is a gender pay gap.  There has always been a gender pay gap.  It was a little smaller a few years ago (went down to 11%, now back up to 12%) but it has ALWAYS BEEN THERE.

And yet people have sought to deny it, explain it away, it's because women want to be paid less, take time out for children, aren't as qualified as men, don't need as much income because the man of the house is the breadwinner.  WRONG.

And we knew these dismissals were wrong.  Lots and lots of us.  Not just from lived experience or from observing others around us but from the other many ways that workplaces, and society, treats women as less than men apart from pay, and from statistics, and from court cases and union agitation.  WE KNEW THIS ALREADY.

A little digression about "conscious and unconscious bias".  Can we please just call it what it is?  SEXISM.  That's what you call it when people are intentionally or unintentionally discriminating against women, individually or collectively, because they are women.  It's sexism, it's always been sexism - even the other explanations (now proven to have had only a small impact) like time out for childcare, taking jobs with lower responsibilities, not asking for promotion or pay increases blah blah blah all have a basis in sexism.

So how do we stop sexism, vis a vis the gender pay gap?  Apparently we need to raise awareness.

This is the point at which I start to get a certain song from That Bloody Woman (NSFW lyrics) stuck in my head.

See para 5:  WE KNEW THIS ALREADY

Yes, it probably will help, and it will give the many many organisations that ALREADY KNEW THIS new strength to push for implementation actual practical measures that will close the gap and treat workers fairly.

But excuse me for a moment while I rage inwardly against the people who only now see the truth that was there the whole time, and pledge to eliminate this Awful New Injustice They Had Never Heard Of Before Today.

I heard someone on the radio saying there is a strong business case to pay women fairly.  Of course there is, there always was.  Just as there are strong economic arguments to support the Living Wage, paying teachers more, showing that cleaners bring more value to society than hedge fund managers.

Again, WE KNEW THIS ALREADY.

Because businesses who get to pay lower wages save money in the short term.  Anyone who has ever worked in the union movement or a strongly unionised workplace will be able to tell you this -  for too many in management and above keeping the quarterlywage bill low is seen as essential, even when it undermines longer term benefits like staff retention, and increased productivity.

The tyranny of a corporate approach (in government too) that demands the lowest possible wage bill, and the lowest possible number of staff, will continue unless we ACTUALLY MAKE IT STOP.

That means legislation folks, not just raising awareness.  LAW CHANGES, sweet sweet law changes that make it necessary to STOP paying people less based on irrelevancies like gender identity and race.

We've asked nicely for pay equity for many years.  We've even asked assertively and with facts, like men do (eye roll).

CAN WE JUST DO THIS ALREADY?  (PLEASE)


I don't do comments anymore.  You can find me on Twitter or FB under juliefairey.

Guestie: Who is Kristine Bartlett?

Many thanks to Rebecca Matthews of the Pay Equity Challenge Coalition for permission to re-post this from their blog:

An important legal case can put a previously unknown individual into the spotlight and maybe even make them a household name. It can also be a way for one person to symbolise the experience of hundreds of thousands of others.

Get to know the name Kristine Bartlett. Because this brave and hard-working Lower Hutt caregiver is the new face of the campaign for fair pay for low-paid women and for women’s work to be paid fairly when compared to jobs men do.

The Service and Food Workers Union Nga Ringa Tota is taking a case that aged care employers and the Government that funds them are in breach of the Equal Pay Act 1972 because of their failure to address the very low pay rates in the sector.

The union member at the centre of the case, Kristine Bartlett, is a long-term caregiver at Terranova Homes and Care. She says her hourly wage of $14.46 is less than what would be paid to male employees with the same, or substantially similar skills. Only six of Terranova’s  117 carers are men.

The new case is an historic opportunity to prove that female dominated care work is undervalued and underpaid as was so convincingly demonstrated in the Caring Counts Report.

This case heralds a new approach in the fight for equal pay and pay and employment equity in New Zealand.

The case has been referred to the Employment Court from the Employment Relations Authority. The Pay Equity Challenge Coalition has been accepted as an intervener by the Court. The status of interveners is a watching brief and they may possibly make extra submissions to those of the claimants.

Living Wage opinion piece, and the responses

Last Friday the Herald published an opinion piece I had submitted arguing for a living wage.  It was my 2012 aim to submit an op ed and I finally managed it, albeit two days into 2013 ;-)

TLDR; the main point of my argument is surely no one's labour is worth less than it costs them to produce that labour (i.e. to live).  In the many comments on the article and conversations I've had with people online and off on this matter I have never encountered a proper refutation to this; indeed it's almost always ignored.  Take for example this opposing opinion piece published in the Herald three days after mine. 

It's been an interesting experience, writing for a different audience from The Hand Mirror and watching how the response has been almost completely divorced from the blogosphere.  Not a single murmur on any blog that I've seen about the living wage discussion which has taken place quite heatedly on the Herald website across two opinion pieces now.  I've had people take the effort to ferret out my council email address and send me their thoughts, and contact from people I haven't seen for years except vaguely online telling me their mother told them about it.  Quite a different experience from the often hyper-critical environment online. 

Finally, I want to give a big thank you to Deborah Russell of A Bee of a Certain Age and The Lady Garden, who inspired me to do this.  I will be trying to do it again. 

The stubborn gender gap - the Market is not providing

Bad news on the gender pay gap today, as reported in the NZ Herald:

The gender pay gap is the biggest it has been in 10 years, according to new data from Statistic New Zealand.

The quarterly employment survey shows the gender gap has increased in the year to September by 1.3 per cent, from 12.85 per cent to 14.18 per cent.

Pay Equity Challenge Coalition said it was the biggest gap it had seen in a decade.

Contrary to the delightful picture the Herald have chosen to illustrate their story (a white man and a white woman, both in suits, arm-wrestling) the gender pay gap is not a zero sum game, where men will lose out if women gain, and it is also not predominantly the concern of those in the higher paid roles where suit-wearing is expected.  In March 2009 I wrote a longish post about what I see are the reasons for the gender pay gap.  I'm not going to rehash that again here, because I agree with our guest poster from March 2010, Rebecca Matthews, who wrote then:

It seems to me that there are too many people, and particularly in this government, who use further research and analysis as a shield to hide behind, because they actually don’t view the gender pay gap as a problem and don’t want to commit to doing anything about it..

The only people who have ever made real progress towards pay equity for women, or indeed for other group disadvantaged by not being older middle-class or above white men who appear straight, have been workers' groups and movements led by those who deserve the improvements.  Employers do not magnanimously pass on fair pay, they only do it when they are forced to.  This is why we have a minimum wage; because otherwise employers would pay some people below it and as a society we have decided that is not fair. Some employers are fair, that's true, but they don't appear to be the majority, and the Market doesn't encourage that behaviour.

In other areas we have significant gender gaps too - particularly in political representation of women and appointments to boards.  Talk about quotas has been slowly building for some years, in response to the inability of political parties and organisations to deal with it voluntarily and effectively.  I used to be pretty anti-quota; I thought that it would undermine those women appointed or elected.  But, having heard from Judy McGregor on the topic, I've changed my mind. 

It is not as if there is a shortage of women who would be good in senior roles, on boards, as political decision-makers.  Indeed there is some contention that more women on the boards of major financial institutions may have meant we didn't end up with all that global financial meltdown stuff.  Without a TARDIS, I don't feel I can say for sure.

The shortage is instead in the area of those willing to appoint women.  And if they won't start doing it, despite all the evidence of the value of diversity at the decision-making level, and decades of working to change attitudes, then maybe it is time to regulate.

Reminder: Paid Parental Leave meeting in Auckland tonight!

Hope to see you there!

What:  Public meeting as part of the 26 for Babies campaign, supporting Sue Moroney's bill to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks.

When:  Tuesday 23rd October, 7pm

Where:  At the Fickling Centre, underneath the Mt Roskill Library, 546 Mt Albert Rd, Three Kings (best accessed from the lower carpark)

Who:  You, your friends, your neighbours, your workmates, that person you say hi to at the bus stop, and...

• Michele A'Court in the chair
• Jacquie Brown - famous from such things as Keep Calm and Carry On
• Sue Moroney MP - Labour
• Jan Logie MP - Greens
• Marama Davidson - Te Wharepora Hou
• Professor Tim Hazeldine - Economist

Facebook event.

Auckland public meeting on Extending Paid Parental Leave - 23rd Oct

What:  Public meeting as part of the 26 for Babies campaign, supporting Sue Moroney's bill to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks.

When:  Tuesday 23rd October, 7pm

Where:  At the Fickling Centre, underneath the Mt Roskill Library, 546 Mt Albert Rd, Three Kings (best accessed from the lower carpark)

Who:  You, your friends, your neighbours, your workmates, that person you say hi to at the bus stop, and...

• Michele A'Court in the chair
• Jacquie Brown - famous from such things as Keep Calm and Carry On
• Sue Moroney MP - Labour
• Jan Logie MP - Greens
• Marama Davidson - Te Wharepora Hou
• Professor Tim Hazeldine - Economist

Facebook event.

Paid Parental leave extension passes second hurdle

Fantastic to hear the first reading of the Private Member's Bill to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks pass tonight.  Labour, Greens, NZ First, the Maori Party, Mana and United Future all voted in favour, and only National and Act opposed.

The first hurdle was getting a Bill into the ballot and drawn - Sue Moroney undertook this and had some good luck to get it pop out relatively quickly, and now the second hurdle is dealt with we have a bit of distance to travel before the third, which will be submissions to the Select Committee process.

The 26 For Babies campaign is being launched tomorrow (Thursday) to support the Bill through to a hopefully successful third reading, and you can show your support by Liking their Facebook page (and no doubt participating in other forthcoming activities for those not into that kind of thing).

Please consider this an open thread to discuss the Bill, the concept of paid parental leave in general, and the political aspect of today's votes (another Opposition-sponsored Bill also passed its first reading, on Mondayising Waitangi and ANZAC Days). 



Snippets from the "Diary of a Caregiver" - Wellington August 9th

This event sounds totally amaze, many thanks to Rebecca for telling me about it.

Snippets from the “Diary of a Caregiver”

EEO Commissioner, Judy McGregor, will talk on her experiences as a caregiver and compiling the report Caring Counts

This event is hosted by the NZCTU Women’s Council and is a fundraiser for the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma Women’s Committee

August 9^th, 5.30- 7.00pm, 13^th Floor Education House, 178 Willis Street. Wellington

Serving soup, rolls and snacks at 6pm – a cash bar will be open

Cost $20 & $10.00 for low waged

Rsvp (required) to Karin Currie Karinc@nzctu.org.nz by  August the 7^th. 

Facebook event.

---

I'm keen to assist with organising something similar in Auckland if others are interested...

Women's work

Paid parental leave another chance to bring down the patriarchy

Judy Horacek cartoon shows female employee asking
"I'd like paid maternity..." and employer responding "leave".

My number one reason for supporting six months' paid parental leave is that it will be good for the babies and mothers involved.  There's been plenty written on that aspect, so I'm not going to rehash that ground but do feel free to do so in comments.

I'm going to focus instead on the other big benefit I see from effectively doubling the amount of paid parental leave parents can access (from 14 weeks currently to 26 weeks incrementally).  And that is securing a clear role for the parent who wasn't pregnant, starting from the early days.

With the existing scheme partners can split the paid parental leave, as long as the pregnant one was eligible for it.  However I imagine that only happens quite rarely, particularly when breastfeeding is the main source of sustenance for the new person.  My personal experience has been that it would not have been practical to split paid parental leave in those first few months.  It may well be different for others (I hope so!).  But extend that period to 6 months and suddenly it becomes a lot more viable for many families to share the leave, and thus share the parenting, and probably the other domestic tasks too.  It's also likely to raise the number of men accessing the non-paid parental leave which they've been entitled to take for years.  Employers will need to become more open to considering supporting their workers who are parents, regardless of whether they are a mother or a father (or something else entirely). 

So often I hear of relationships where the domestic work was pretty even until the couple had kids, and then patriachal archetypes slowly but surely overtake both parents, despite best intentions.  If I have to read another article that tells me women do more of the housework and family caring work, on average, than men, even when both partners in a heterosexual relationship work outside the home, I think I may just scream in a non-ladylike fashion. 

Just as the initial proposal of paid parental leave sparked some change in the attitude towards parents who work outside the home (and the value of parenting work in general) so this increase could push that conversation further down the line towards something that looks a little bit like equity.

Here's a chance, a real chance, to show actual structural support for more sharing of the caring. 

Down on the wharves and back in the homes

Currently I'm spending some of my time helping to raise funds for the Save Our Port campaign.  For me this is important work not just because of what it means for the union movement, or the workers involved, or progressive organisations who believe work is not serfdom.  For me it's more personal than that.

Quite recently I discovered that my grandfather, my mother's father, was one of those locked out of the wharves in 1951.  He died sometime before I was born, but my Nana, his wife, was my last living grandparent and closest to me, passing away when she was 80 and I was 16.  She lived in Mt Roskill most of her life, within the area I now represent in local government.

I never heard about the Lockout from my Nana.  I have only heard the stories my mother and her sisters have shared in the last few years.  But I do know that nothing remains, physically, of that period in my family's life; there is no Stood Loyal Right Through certificate for IC Deluca, signed by Toby Hill, that has been treasured and handed down.

And that's because of what the Lockout meant for my grandmother and for those at home while the workers were picketing.  It was illegal to help the families, illegal to give them food, or money, or indeed for the media to do any balanced reporting of the dispute.  From what I understand Nana struggled enormously with keeping herself and her three children in clothes in particular - no one was going to surreptitiously donate women's underwear to a wharfie family in 1951.  While efforts were undertaken to support the families of the workers locked out in my family's case it was still largely up to the housewife of the household to manage as best she could.  When an opportunity arose to dispose of reminders of this very very difficult period in her life, Nana took it, and so nothing remains.

Thus I'm helping to raise funds - for the campaign, and for the families.  There are queues of union members outside the Maritime Union office door in the morning to apply for hardship, literally to feed their kids, and I can tell you honestly that they look to me like they hate having to do that, hate having to rely on other people to get the necessities of life.  Now they are no longer on strike, having voted to go back to work last Thursday, but they are still not getting paid, thanks to an intransigent employer who they are taking back to court today.

The partners, mostly women that I've seen, are doing sterling work supporting the cause - they have a welfare committee that rings all the partners to check on them, see what support they need and let's them know what the options are, as well as coordinating supermarket vouchers, food parcels and financial grants.  I'm really glad to see this happening, and even more pleased to see it actively supported by the union itself.

Here's a small way you can help me to help them:

Special Screening of The Muppets - 3rd April, 6.10pm, Sylvia Park
Don't let those muppets at the Ports of Auckland get you down, come laugh at the real Muppets instead!  This could be your last chance to see The Muppets in a movie theatre, as we understand it is likely to stop showing on general release in the next few days.  $20 for adults, $10 for children.  Or a $20 solidarity ticket - to shout a wharfie or one of their whanau.  Email julie.fairey@gmail.com to secure your tickets - limited number!  Please put MOVIE in the subject line.

There are other ways to donate too, please check out this link for more information.

Now you've come to the hardest time

While the details of the Ports of Auckland dispute get a bit complicated - at its core it is incredibly simple. The union isn't making demands for better wages and conditions (and I'd support them if they did).  The Port, as the employer, demanded massive changes aimed at casualising the workforce.  The union refused to

Casualisation is a serious threat to workers' income - not knowing how many hours you're going to work each week . As this video demonstrates it also has a huge impact on workers lives.  One of the conditions port workers are trying to hold onto is the right to have one weekend off in three.

But from the employers point of view it's also about power - the employer has far more power over a casualised work-force than they do with a permanent one.   

The actions of Ports of Auckland are not just a threat to port workers.  If Ports of Auckland win, then more employers will follow.  Secure hours are one of the most basic and important work conditions.

It's not over.  In shipping time is money (that's why those in charge of the Rena charted a quicker course).  There's six weeks until the redundancies can actually happen legally and all sorts of industrial action that can happen before then. And after that they'll still need people to work the port - and if they can't get scabs the containers.  

So support and solidarity are incredibly important, not just for the wharfies, but for all our jobs.  The union's campaign site is saveourport.com. 

********

Ports of Auckland are not the only major industrial action at the moment.  AFFCO (owned by the Talleys family) has locked out meatworkers across the country, they're also demanding casualisation and a roll back of wages and conditions.  Oceania rest home workers have been on  strike seeking a  pay increase (the companies offer is currently zero for the first year).

At CMP meatworkes union withstood the company's demands for lower wages and casualisation.  They received huge solidarity and support.  The employers may be on the rampage, but they can be resisted - together.

Of children and protests and taking the former to the latter

Port workers and their families on the picket line. 
Child holds placard saying "All my daddy wants is a roster".

On Saturday I will be going to the Rally to Save Our Port (4pm at Britomart for those not into Facespy).  I'll try to communicate my outrage at the union-busting tactics of Ports of Auckland management in an appropriate manner for someone who is part of the co-governance structure of POAL's inevitable owner (Auckland Council) in another post, if I can find a way. 

My children will be coming with me, and their father, to the rally.  I expect to see many other children there too, not least because at the heart of the issue of the Ports dispute is the impact of casualisation on families.

Wriggly and Snuffly are unlikely to be holding placards or chanting (neither can read and one can't talk) but they will be there and we will talk to them about what it is and why and see what the verbal one things and so on.

Part of my reason for taking the kids is to show them the possibilities of collective action, of standing up together with others, and give them experiences that are about challenging authority.  In time I shall possibly be the authority that gets challenged, but no matter as long as they are thinking critically. 

But the main reason they are going, and the main reason most small children who go to protests are there, is because I simply cannot participate unless I can bring my children with me.

Do I think that Wriggly and Snuffly understand precisely the cause and the chants and the speeches flying around above their heads?  No.  And I don't expect anyone who sees them to think "wow those kids are big supporters of this cause."  They are there primarily because I am there.

Is that selfish on my part, to take them along so that I can participate?  I don't think so.  I'm not putting them in danger or depriving them of something vital; in fact I'm showing them a part of civil society that lots of kids probably only see from the outside, on the television. 

If I go shopping and I take them with me no one says I am cruel for making Wriggly and Snuffly tag along.  Whenever I've taken the kids to council work I haven't faced any criticism for forcing them to be in a workshop or meeting; rather I've been apologising for when they are a bit noisy or try to steal someone's shoe. 

When they get older and it becomes more feasible to do so, I will ask them if they want to come and if they say no then I'll try to arrange a babysitter or something.  We'll see how that goes. 

And as with protests so with so much else in life - if you make it so that children are unwelcome then you are also effectively shutting out their primary caregivers, and most of the time that's going to be women.  Let's see if we can change that.

Too few women leaders

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg talking at TEDWomen

Sheryl Sandberg's TEDWomen talk on the lack of women in boardrooms is worth a watch.  There is a very helpful transcript as well as multi-lingual subtitles available too (at the same link)

Three ideas she puts forward for addressing the lack of women in leadership:

1.  Sit at the table - Sandberg contends that women often systematically underestimate their own abilities, and success and likeability tend to be negatively correlated for women (and positively for men). 

2.  Make your partner a real partner - The idea that we've made more progress in balance outside the home than inside it. 

3.  Don't leave before you leave - Meaning don't make changes in your work plans to accomodate children you don't even have yet.

Watch/listen/read for an interesting expansion on all the above.

As is often the case with these kinds of analyses from women who have "made it" there is more focus on the choices of individual women than looking at the systematic and cultural stuff that drives those decisions, which I find annoying. It's as if we just devalue ourselves and make crap decisions about our lives for absolutely no reason whatsoever. While there is some implicit stuff for men to take out of this talk too, it isn't made very explicit, although that may be due to the audience of the talk (i.e. mainly female I think).


What did you think?

ARRRRRGH

There's some interesting - and worrying - news regarding employment for women in Christchurch in the aftermath of the earthquake:

...research showed female employees were hit hardest by job losses after the February 22 earthquake.
A Ministry of Women's Affairs study found women accounted for 70 per cent of job losses in the city. Women made up 90 per cent of the 12,600 jobs lost in the retail and accommodation industries.
Meanwhile, just one in 10 of the 4500 construction jobs created in Christchurch last year were filled by women

Why this this interesting and worrying? Because of the effect on women? Because women are under-represented in growing industries? Because it may indicate that women are being discriminated against when it come to dismissals?

Ahaha no. No.  It's because it's leading to a woman drought, silly.

A FUCKING WOMAN DROUGHT.

Oh, but wait, there's more. Not only are there less women for men to choose from, the quality of them has diminished, because women from university age to thirties are the first to leave. Not only that, "the girls stopped making as much effort with their appearance. They obviously didn't have to try as hard."

So nice to know we've got our priorities sorted.

Lazy

There have been a few things that have inspired this post. I've really appreciated the voices emerging from the fat positive/size acceptance movement challenging the idea that anyone has any obligation to be healthy. Amongst others, there are some excellent posts on this is at The Fat Nutritionist and Raising My Boy Chick. But there is little equivalent of these when it comes to that other stereotype attached to fatness: laziness.


Then there's this image which has been going round on Facebook, which reads as follows:

IT’S PRETTY AMAZING THAT
OUR SOCIETY HAS REACHED A POINT
WHERE THE EFFORT NECESSARY TO

EXTRACT OIL FROM THE GROUND
SHIP IT TO A REFINERY
TURN IT INTO PLASTIC
SHAPE IT APPROPRIATELY
TRUCK IT TO A STORE
BUY IT AND BRING IT HOME

IS CONSIDERED TO BE LESS EFFORT THAN WHAT IT TAKES
TO JUST WASH THE SPOON WHEN YOU’RE DONE WITH IT.

(This image annoys me a lot).


There's personal experience also. I have a disability which makes certain tasks either extremely difficult or very slow. Particularly as a child, but sometimes still, I've been called lazy as a result of that. And on the flip side of that, I found some activities so incredibly easy that I could do them in half the time others did and spend half of that time staring in to space - and worried that I must be being incredibly lazy as a result. I have something of a terror of being seen as lazy, and at times have pushed myself to injury by taking on unsustainable amounts of work to avoid that.


And then there's the speculation on why the turnout at the election was so low. There have been a number of comments along the lines of "I don't mind people who make a conscious decision not to vote but I do when they're just too lazy."


When I started to think about laziness, I struggled to understand what exactly it was. It's something we talk about all the time, but none of the definitions I could find really made sense. Dictionary.com is probably as good a starting place as any:

lazy [ley-zee]   Origin la·zy    [ley-zee] Show IPA adjective, -zi·er, -zi·est, verb, -zied, -zy·ing. adjective
1. averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion; indolent.
2. causing idleness or indolence: a hot, lazy afternoon.
3. slow-moving; sluggish: a lazy stream.
4. (of a livestock brand) placed on its side instead of upright. 

I think we can safely ignore 4 for the purposes of this discussion. 2 and 3 (and I know these are not specifically applied to people, but the associations are still there) have real value judgements implicit in them. 3 is related to speed. There are a lot of values we attach to speed (remember that 'I want to punch slow moving people in the back of the head' facebook group). Speed of movement, speed of thought, speed of learning. Huge issues there when thinking about disability.

When it comes to 1, here's the definition of idleness (and I promise I won't spend all this post quoting dictionary.com:

idleness [ahyd-l]   Origin i·dle    [ahyd-l] Show IPA adjective, i·dler, i·dlest, verb i·dled, i·dling, noun adjective
1. not working or active; unemployed; doing nothing: idle workers.
2. not spent or filled with activity: idle hours.
3. not in use or operation; not kept busy: idle machinery.
4. habitually doing nothing or avoiding work; lazy.
5. of no real worth, importance, or significance: idle talk.

Everything there screams judgements on the value of work or activity. And we've all heard those before. Women's work vs men's work. Paid work vs unpaid work. Paid work vs unpaid work vs non work activities. Etc.


I think the first definition of lazy is the most interesting. It refers to not wanting to work, the favourite trope of beneficiary bashers everywhere. But if the definition of work is relatively complicated, that of activity is even more so. Not to be facetious, but what is not an activity? Watching television is as much an activity as running a marathon but only one of those activities would led the participant to accusations of laziness. So the way I'm looking at this is in terms of allocation of resources (and yes, I do find it deeply ironic that the image I posted referred to spoons). Laziness is a value judgement on how we, usually as individuals, allocate our personal resources. 


The image I posted earlier, the one that berates people for not washing the spoons? Think for a minute about what types of work are involved in washing a metal spoons versus manufacturing a plastic spoon. One is individual, the other is part of a process involving many people, which theoretically allows for types of work to be allocated according to people's abilities, for predictable shifts, sick leave. It may not in practice, but the idea is not alien. Washing a spoon isn't a big deal - unless turning on taps is painful or impossible. If you take lunch to eat outside the home and there are no washing facilities, it should be easy to take it home and wash it. If you don't have memory impairments that mean chances are the remaining yoghurt on it will end up going mouldy in your bag. If you have a car to put it in rather than cart it round with you all day, that makes things easier. If you can afford a dishwasher, that makes things easier. If you are responsible for a number of people, you're going to have more spoons to wash. And it's not going to be just spoons - the same extends to plates and forks and cups.

So there are two things going on here. One is presenting washing a spoon as an activity which takes a universally equal and minimal amount of effort, rather than a task that can be difficult or impossible or cause a whole series of problems, depending on the individual and their resources. The other is to compare two ideas of work: one linked with individual unpaid labour in the home; the other paid employment in often traditionally male occupations. The former is a trivial activity; the latter hard and excessive work.

Voting is an allocation of resources also. I think in this country voting, for most people, uses less resources than it does in most others, and I'm happy about that. But it still requires resources, mental and physical. To complain about someone not voting, you're claiming the right to a say in how they allocate their personal resources. And that may well be in ignorance about factors which either cause them to have less personal resources, or to have more demands on those resources. I know people are frustrated about the result of the election, and see - rightly or wrongly - a low turnout as partly responsible. But if increasing the turnout is a primary goal for you, berating individuals is not the way to do it.

Of course, as I indicated at the beginning of this post, laziness is implicitly linked to fat. 'Fat and lazy' is such an automatic phrase I had to stop and think about why they are associated. Of course, there's the obvious belief that lack of physical activity causes fatness - or fatness causes lack of activity - or... oh dear god people, please make up your minds. In any case, it comes back to the privileging of one activity (physical exercise) over others. But there's more to it than that. By being fat, there's an implied judgement that you have allocated resources incorrectly - you have consumed too much and you have worked too little. Accusations of laziness are simply the next strand of that. Your allocation of resources is a moral failing on your part.

We all have things we should do. But that is not the same as giving some activities inherent moral worth (as opposed to moral value attached to what happens as a result of these, which is a different question entirely) over others nor is it demanding a certain level of exertion, physical or intellectual, for a person to be considered worthy or 'not lazy'. I think judgements such as these are very common in activist groups - I'm sure I've made them myself and I've certainly had them made against me. But laziness is, when it comes down to it, full of implied fatphobia and makes - often heavily gendered - statements about what work is and isn't valued, something I've had more than enough of.

Support locked-out CMP workers

111 Meat workers are still locked-out from the jobs at in Rangitikei.  They've been more than six weeks without wages and they need support.


This Saturday is a national day of fund-raising and action in support of the locked-out workers.  McDonalds are being targetted, as they are one of the primary customers of the company.  There are events organised all over the country Saturday 2 December:




Whangarei
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10:00: McDonalds Whangarei, Bank Street – Mehau, mehow@riseup.net, 0226894509

West Auckland
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10:00: McDonalds Lincoln Rd, CNR Lincoln Rd & Moselle Ave, Carol Gilmour, CarolG@nzno.org.nz, 0274 827 030

Central Auckland
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11:00: McDonalds Grey Lynn, 102-112 Great North Road - Louisa Jones, louisa.jones@epmu.org.nz, 027 590 0071

Hamilton
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12:00: McDonalds Five cross roads, 231 Peach Grove Road - Jared Philips, jared@unite.org.nz, 029-494-9863

Tauranga
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12:00: McDonalds Tauranga at CNR 11th Ave & Cameron Road - Jill Kerr, 021 626 094 

New Plymouth
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11:00: McDonalds New Plymouth on Cnr Eliott and Leach Sts – Sam Jones, sam.jones@sfwu.org.nz, 0275448563 (pls txt) 

Manawatu
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11:00: McDonalds Palmerston North, Cnr Rangitikei & Featherston Sts - Simon Oosterman, cmplockout@nzctu.org.nz, 021 885 410

1:00: McDonalds Bulls, 95 Bridge St, Bulls – Wayne Ruscoe, wayne.ruscoe@epmu.org.nz, 0275910056

1:00: McDonalds Feilding, 78 Kimbolton Rd – Joceyln Pratt, jocelynp@nzdwu.org.nz, 021 551 991 

1:00: McDonalds Levin, Cnr Stanley & Oxford Sts – Simon Oosterman, cmplockout@nzctu.org.nz, 021 885 410 

1:00: McDonalds Wanganui, 314 Victoria Street – Terangi Wroe - 0220165199

Hutt Valley
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11:00: McDonalds Petone, 29 Victoria Street - Toby Boraman, ffyddless@yahoo.co.nz

Wellington
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12:00: McDonalds Manners Mall, 55 Manners Street, Tali Williams, tali.williams@gmail.com, 021 204 4087


Greymouth
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11:00 - McDonalds Greymouth, 57 Tainui Street – Garth Elliot, garth.elliot@epmu.org.nz - 0275900084 

Christchurch
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10:00 – Banner making at Occupy Corner.
11:00: McDonalds Riccarton, CNR Riccarton Rd & Matipo St, Riccarton - Matt Jones, matthew@unite.org.nz, 029 201 3837

Dunedin
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10:00: McDonalds George St Dunedin, 232 George Street - Malcolm Deans, mdeans@gardener.com, 0210566593

Invercargill
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Dylan would like to attend a protest if someone can help him organise it: dylan_dogg@hotmail.com. 


If you can't attend then donate some money (info on donating here)  If employers discover they can starve workers into accepting wages 25% wage cuts then who is next?

In solidarity with Russel Norman's EA*

Russel Norman's decision to stand down his EA because of the actions of her partner is a feminist issue. I'm going to leave alone why the Greens thought it appropriate to condemn putting stickers on National party billboards (although it doesn't look good for principled left-wing green voters).** But why is his EA even part of the discussion?

Russel Norman decided to go public with the fact that his EA was in a relationship with Jolyon White. He then decided to use the power he has because she works for him to stand her down (I know that he is not her direct employer but Parliamentary Services are pretty responsive to MPs wishes).

From an employment perspective this is creepy enough - she is being stood down because she didn't tell her boss something her partner said months ago and instead made it clear to her partner that she didn't want anything to do with his actions. This is a pretty horrific view of employment and the right bosses have over their employees lives. A view Russel Norman endorsed.

But there is an important gendered to this. Russel Norman's action reinforces a world-view that defines women in relationships with men through their partners' beliefs and actions and therefore denies their autonomy and even existence. People have condemned Julie's writing on the hand mirror and tried to silence her, because of who her partner is. This discriminatory way of treating of women in relationships with men is systemic. Men are not treated this way, and are not defined by the actions of their partners. Russel Norman has endorsed this double standard by the way he has treated his EA.

Although this is far from the only feminist reason not to vote for any party which has Russell Norman at number 2 on its list. This was, after all, his assessment of Clint Rickards:

I don’t see that being involved in consenting group sex is any reason for him not to go back to work. And people use sex aids so using a police baton in a consenting situation doesn’t seem grounds for refusing him his job back.

Something to think about in the polling booth.

* Obviously this construction of her identity is problematic. However, I decided since I didn't think her identity should be public in this way I didn't feel comfortable putting yet another hit into google about who she was.
** I find the idea that political parties should be able to put up their truly inane hoardings in publicly owned space, but it is morally wrong to talk back to those hoardings, no matter what you are saying, a really depressing view of political dialogue.

Lock-outs

Tonight Qantas management has locked-out its workers and grounded its plans across the world. The dispute itself is complicated, involving three unions, and lots of different issues.  But at it's heart it's about Qantas's desire to fire 1,000 people, and outsource the jobs, cutting wages and conditions.

As they are crying poverty it is worth pointing out that the CEO, Alan Joyce, received a 71% increase in his pay, and now gets $5 million a year.  Qantas's annual profit also doubled last year.

In Rangitikei, CMP meatworks demanded that its workers accepted a 20% pay cut.  It has locked out union members until they agree to this pay cut.  They have now been locked out for 11 days.

The recession gives employers power - and these lock-outs show that they're prepared to use it. The only way to stop employers doing what Qantas and CMP meatworks is doing - is not give in.  The collective .  By standing against companies, large and school, these workers are protecting other workers.  Because if their bosses succeed other companies will take note and do the same.

I haven't heard what solidarity Qantas workers are asking for, although I'll try to update this post if I hear anything.  But the CMP workers need money.  There are 100 of them, and they're trying to survive without wages. You can donate through internet banking here:

38-9007-0894028-08  NZCTU – Disputes Fund

If you're in Palmerston North you can also make donations of food at the union centre.

There's more to say - and if it continues I'll say more.  But the most important thing you can do this week to protect your wages and conditions (if you have a job) is to donate to the CMP workers lock-out fund.

Observations

Observation the First - If kids are going without breakfast their mums probably are too
I get really fed up with the narrative that seems to go with child poverty, as exhibited by the number of kids going to school without breakfast, that seeks to blame the parents.  When food is short in a household often mum is the first to cut her rations.  This is not a situation where there are gluttonous parents hoovering up all the food and not caring that their kids are hungry.  It is a situation where there are families in our society who cannot afford to buy food.  By framing it as the former we can Otherize it - it's Their fault, they are not like me/us, and it's therefore Someone Else's Problem.  To accept it's actually the latter I guess we may need to step up and recognise that our society is something that we can have some say over - we make choices, particularly political choices, that have consequences for others.  To change society is daunting, but shouldn't the systems we live in serve rather than hinder?

Observation the Second - There are not enough jobs
There's been multi-purpose whining about how the youth unemployment rate is a direct result of the abolition of youth rates.  Employers are supposedly giving jobs to older people instead of youf because they can't get away with paying less than the adult minimum wage for young workers.  Older people are competing for places that traditionally went to the young uns because they are losing their own jobs, or their financial situations have changed resulting in the need for second and third incomes.  I really noticed over the weekend the high number of shops shutting, empty commercial spaces for lease, and a large number of retail sales that looked like the immediate precursor to closing down (shelves emptying out, no new stock coming in, quite big discounts on everything).  I also spotted a lot of older workers in the kind of retail jobs that used to be predominantly filled by those in their teens or early twenties.  The layoffs, public and private, don't seem to be getting much media but they are real, and it's definitely a buyer's labour market at the moment.

Observation the Third - A lot of people are moving to Australia for better prospects
In the 90s most of my friends were people I met through university, where we were studying together, and so hardly anyone I knew shifted to Australia.  Then in the 00s a lot of my peers did the OE thing, and some have not come back, but very very few actively moved across the Tasman as a result of a failure to find work here.  Lately week after week I feel I'm hearing of a new acquaintance, relative or friend who is making the shift.  Then there was the woman on Nat Rad from Christchurch last week who sounded very bitter about the lack of support for her family to stay.

What is this Government actually doing about job creation?  Whatever happened to whatever mysterious wondrousness came out of the Jobs Summit?  The Market is not providing; for kids, for their parents, for young, for old, for inbetween.  When do we start asking questions about the system we live in, not the individuals caught in it?